It’s the weekly dingus! The Friday newsletter that rounds up one dingus from the week in news and popular culture. (I recognize there are often many.) And shares some internet reads and a drink recipe. If you enjoy this, consider subscribing. I also accept hate subscribes. But only paid subscribers can comment to tell me how bad this newsletter is.
This week, some owners of NFTs got really mad about NFT theft. What’s an NFT? Glad you asked. It’s a Non-Fungible Token, or a digital image, that is sold online. Like a little piece of art. Except, in this case, the NFT is entirely digital.
These NFTs sell for a lot of money. So, how do you steal them? Well, this isn’t like your parents’ art thief, specifically Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment. You know. The time when art thieves had to sexily bend their bodies over lasers. Or Pierce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair, when art thieves had the difficult task of keeping their hair looking good while rolling quickly underneath a spikey gate that’s closing.
No. Today’s art thieves are lazy, no-good, avocado-toast-eating millennials. Who simply right click and save the image. And then post it online.
Each era gets the art thief it deserves.
(If you are an actual art thief, please contact me. I would love to interview you about this outrage to your noble profession.)
Simply because NFTs are a made-up thing that have value only because a bunch of guys, who got rich from buying and selling fake internet money, decided to make another fake thing. NFTs are the tinker bell of the internet and exist only because a bunch of people sit around their computers and chant, “I believe, I believe!”
The best example of how entirely fake this world is, is that in October, someone bought an NFT for $530 million. They bought it in a crypto currency called ethereum, and they bought it from themselves. These dinguses don’t even deserve Catherine Zeta-Jones!
Not all NFT owners are mad about the thefts. There is a very complicated world of NFT etiquette that stipulates that fine, copy the image, but don’t make it your profile picture? Listen, I’ve read so much about it, because I too love fairy tales. But let me just quote from a Slate article, “Once you start talking about what you can or can’t do with someone else’s NFT image, though, the traditional definition of ownership starts to conflict with the openness that collectors claim to champion. You might even say that the real function of the nascent etiquette forming around NFTs is to preserve the accessibility of these works online while justifying the vast sums that collectors are paying for them.”
The entire article is worth reading if you are interested.
This is the point in the Weekly Dingus, where I desperately apologize to you. Because if you didn’t know this, now you know all of this, and it’s right before a holiday. And you have to gear up to see your anti-vaxx brother-in-law. But maybe you can troll him by telling him that NFTs are like fairies.
Truly all money is like fairies. Once we went off the gold standard, money has value only because we agree it has value. And the richer you are, the more fake it gets. The only people for whom money is very, very real are people who are trapped in cycles of poverty because our society won’t provide universal healthcare, paid leave, or mandate a living wage. Because every time we try, some guy gets up and gets all huffy about the national debt, as if it were a truly real concept and not something that was invented to hold the wealthiest nation in the world hostage to inequality.
If you are rich enough to buy NFTs, I have something else to tell you. Not only are you a dingus. Literally, go buy something interesting like a dinosaur bone. Nicolas Cage, that man knows how to be rich.
But also, you have no taste! Most NFTs are ugly as sin, and some of the most expensive involve, surprise, surprise, a large dash of racism.
But also, a lot of them are just apes with sailor hats? This is like what Joe Rogan would consider good art. This is what the guy who pinned up posters of Megan Fox in his college dorm room, which also inexplicably smelled like moldy hay, thinks of as good art.
It’s ugly and dumb. And now, I’m going to make an NFT of me telling people who buy NFT’s that they are dinguses and sell it for eleventy billion dogecoins, because if I say it’s real, it will become real.
God, all the art heist movies made by millennials are gonna be so stupid, and I think that is the thing that pisses me off the most.
Happy Thanksgiving, I guess.
(All of this said, I did like this interview that Charlie Warzel did with journalist Aaron Lammer about crypto. After you click the link, click “let me read it first.”)
What I Am Reading:
This week, two men were cleared of Malcom X’s murder. This was due to a documentary released last year called Who Killed Malcolm X. Don’t tell me that words and revising history doesn’t matter. It’s important work, which is why Nazis always get mad when you topple a monument. Julius Jones was granted clemency in Oklahoma. And it is no small irony that while innocent Black men fight for their right to live, white men are claiming to have acted in self-defense. I liked this op-ed from Charles Blow. I wished it would have included the Charlottesville trial, which is concluding this week.
Also, are you a New York Times journalist who thinks Biden’s Build Back Better plan has a lot of dumb niche carve-outs, like doulas? Well, congratulations, because you should have been this week’s dingus, but Christopher Ingraham outlined precisely why doulas are necessary. So, you get a pass. Also, I wrote a book that, in part, outlines the way Black women have been forced out of obstetrics and why doulas and midwives are a necessary part of giving qualified care.
Caity Weaver, one of the most talented writers working TODAY, wrote about Britney Spears' boyfriend, Sam Asghari. Alexis Coe is talking about Mary Lincoln!!
I loved this New York Times op-ed by an 87-year-old woman about living her life again, despite the risks. I think it’s so beautifully life affirming. It manages to both acknowledge grief and loss, and also use that as a motivation for living. I’ve been feeling this a lot lately and been having a hard time expressing it.
Justus Rosenberg, a professor who also fought the Nazis, died at 100. His obituary is a tribute to a brilliant and an awe-inspiring life.
I wrote about the high cost of being a woman.
What I Am Drinking:
Last week, I made a mulled wine, and it was fine? Honestly, I put too much allspice dram into it, and it was a little allspicey. People at my party drank it. But mostly they just put whiskey into apple cider as our Lord Jesus Christ intended.
And can I tell you something? Last week, I had a party and I set out all my mugs. I have a very extensive mug collection, and each mug has an important story or history. When I was married, my ex actually hid mugs of mine that he didn’t like. But last week, in my own home, I had a large party with a lot of friends. And at some point, people started handing out mugs according to people’s tastes and personalities. One friend actually put back a cup because she knew it would fit another person who was coming later. Watching all my friends get drunk out of my offensive cups, in my house, made me so deliriously happy.
Also, this week, I’m making cranberry gin and tonics.
This brings us to a brief programming note.
Programming Note:
I am going to take next week off for the holiday and because I’m frantically working on my book. And my kids are with their dad all week. I’ll republish an older essay on Wednesday. And on Monday, I’ll do a subscriber-only AMA for one hour at 12pm CT. Is this a good idea? TIME WILL TELL.
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A decent dingus nomination, though I would have also considered Kevin McCarthy - except he's perpetually a dingus, so maybe he doesn't need that bonus today.
That party sounds fabulous! And having a large number of mugs is perfectly normal (says the man who has enough mugs to fill an entire cupboard).
This season's drink for me? Is, of course, the Snowy Pat Collins! ( https://www.nbcwashington.com/local/pat-collins-immortalized-in-cocktail/1902196/ )
Enjoy your Thanksgiving week, Lyz - and thank you again for providing this space for all of us.
"NFTs are the tinker bell of the internet" is the quote of the month! Thanks for that!